edition of "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins right now. don't forget the employment report tomorrow so get an early night. welcome to "street signs." where the sign on the street says "out of gas." it is the new gold in new jersey and a lot of new york. thousands of people unable to fill up. like you're stuck in 1970s era gas lines. we'll show you some of the amazing video, along with the incredible snafu of just trying to get in and out of new york. the city, my friends, is a parking lot. plus, the head of one of america's biggest builders tells us what it is going to take to rebuild. and bond king bill gross chimes in on the economic impact of what he is expecting from tomorrow's massive pre-election payroll jobs report. mandy, there is news outside of the storm. zplin deed there is. let's look at what the stock market is up to on that note.

the dow is trying for its first 1% gain today since september the 13th. the s&p also rallying today. the index has not seen a positive november since 2009. the nasdaq tumbled 4.5% in october, but it is now having its best day since september 27th. let's get straight down to the floor. bob pisani joins us from the floor of new york stock exchange. nice rally we've got going on here. i would imagine though not quite so nice trying to get in to the nyse this morning. >> it's a mess! but first to the rally. it is the first day of the month. we usually get some inflows. that's what's happening. i love it when it works right like that. nice vol volumevolume for beate. we might make it under the heavy volume. 4 million shares. a lot of beaten up names, techs, materials and financials all doing a lot better today. this is the first day of the month, hopefully a sign of buying coming in.

this has been absolutely commuting hell to get into lower manhattan. it is almost impossible to get in through new jersey. two-hour commute, 1 1/2 hours this morning at the lincoln tunnel. a lot of people are trying to stay in hotel rooms. there's not a hotel room anywhere -- anywhere in new york. a lot of them have no power and no hot water. how is that for a nice little week for you? nonetheless, everybody's shouldering this very cheerfully. in terms of some stocks that are doing a little bit better today, here's -- tech has had a horrible month. intel's had a horrible time. but nice moves up on decent volume today. hopefulness. let's hope that continues. mandy, i was just at harry's bar. legendary watering hole right down the street here talking to an old friend of mine. he said give me electricity, i'll open in 24 hours. he has four feet of water. one of the bars in the basement flooded. they've got 150 people pumping it out, cleaning it up. there are literally hundreds of

people on the other side of this wall that are engaged in a massive clean-up effort downtown. shop keepers pushing brooms down the street. really, it is a beautiful effort, certainly difficult but beautiful to watch everyone try to pull together. >> they really are trying to pull together. it's what new yorkers do best. thank you for that, bob. we're all going to need an adult beverage after this week because the road to recovery from sandy is literally at a standstill. you just heard bob talk about it. get this -- by one account, only 20% of all new jersey gas stations are open and so the ones that are open have lines literally hundreds of cars long. it's unbelievable, folks. we've got a team of reporters working the story which itself is going to have a huge economic impact on millions of people in the northeast. let us begin with mary thompson. she's at a rest stop in new jersey. mary, i drove by where you are at this morning. i drove by last night. literally backed up on to the turnpike for a mile. have you ever seen anything like

this? >> reporter: well, if i answer truthfully, brian, i might be revealing my age. but yes, i do recall something akin to this in the energy crisis in the 1970s, but certainly i don't recall lines being this long. also, i reported post-katrina from the gulf coast in alabama and mississippi, and when we were driving around we were always concerned about being able to find gas but we managed to do so and certainly, again, never saw lines like this. take a look at this. just look over my left shoulder here. these are the lines. this basically is the new reality for drivers in new jersey and some parts of new york. at least for the next several days. >> we did some errands around town, had enough gas. took care of business. and so we fill up for the duration. here we are, stuck in line. >> we got to take diesel fuel oil for our big vacuums we have. it is just a nightmare over there. it is a nightmare everywhere.

>> reporter: you don't know how much of a nightmare. it could take you up to three hours here at the vince lombardi rest stop to get gas. the primary reason for the long lines -- lack of power. in new jersey more than 2 million homes or small businesses are without electricity and a lot of those small businesses are gas stations. if they don't have electricity, they can't pump gas leaving some drivers dry and pushing their way to the pump. second, some stations that have gas may run out quickly. the new jersey gasoline retailers association says the average station has a 30,000-gallon tank and on an average day goes through one-third of that. of course, demand is much higher after sandy. last week some important cogs in the supply chain are without power or damaged. that's a problem, too, as you'll learn in a moment. a couple of arcses have been taken. new jersey governor chris christie signed a waiver that allows new jersey gas stations to buy fuel from out of state distributors. that could keep the supply going. and then secondly, the epa basically waived clean air

restrictions until november 20th along the east coast. that should keep the supply coming in. but power remains the key. >> you didn't reveal your age. my father owned a gas station from 1979 to '81 in l.a. true. i used to go there during a kid during the gas crunch. there were fist fights. my father had to break them up. is everybody behaving themselves? >> we have seen no evidence of any kind of temper flare-ups or anything. as you mentioned, there's been a police presence here all day. we've actually seen other people helping some of the drivers who ran out of gas on their way to the pump help them push their car to the final destination. so all in all, people have shown a great deal of patience here today. >> indeed, at least one report of a fight breaking out at a gas station. mary, great information. kate kelly is live at a gas terminal. the longer the terminal stays shut down, the bigger the squeeze on fuel supplies. that means high prices for all of us. kate, what are you seeing there?

>> reporter: well, that's some amazing stuff that mary's reporting on, but over here at the linden based refinery, run by new star energy, it is very much all hands on deck at this 5 million-barrel capacity storage unit. essentially 100 new star energy workers are laboring to get this operation back online right now, but they have a variety of hurdles that they are facing. lack of power, nine to ten feet of water inside some buildings. storage units that have literally tumbled many yards from where they once were. piles and piles of debris, some of it containing dangerous elements, including raw sewage. the smell of gas is permeating the air here, though not from new star which hasn't yet found any leaks from its property. nearby, however, a motiva enterprises terminal discovered two leaking diesel tanks that have poured an unknown amount of fuel into the water. we've said earlier we thought it was 300,000 barrels but the company is not confirming that. they say as yet they don't know. new star, however, where we are

today has a focus to get some of the 3 1/2 million barrels of diesel, unleaded and jet fuel that it currently stores to the new yorkers and new jerseyians who desperately need them. they expect to have power back as early as midnight tonight. getting this marine terminal around me ready for business again though, that's separate from the truck refueling station, may take four to six weeks. especially given that some of the 39 motors that operate the pumps that help get the gas into pipes and on to ships and so on were waterlogged. equipment specialists on the east coast are so backed up right now i'm told new star is actually considering taking some of those motors to the middle of the country, to oklahoma, to get them fixed there, brian and mandy. so it is really an emergency situation with all hands on deck. >> kate kelly, thank you very much. four to six weeks. my gosh! thank you. well, i guess here's one bright spot.

the gas stations that are open seem to be charging fairly reasonable prices. but if refineries and distributors stay closed, could we see $5 or $6 gas here in the northeast? it would crush gdp. let's ask pd petroleum analyst at gasbuddy.com. could we see $5, $6? >> very unlikely. the flame of the game is power, getting it back. terminals are stocked, pipelines have gasoline in them. it is just getting power back. the biggest concern we've had is a phillip's 66 facility in linden, one of the biggest facilities on the eastern seaboard. now we've been told that facility now has power but they don't necessarily have the time of restoration, that is a time when we will start reproducing and getting their facility restarted. that is the biggest wild card here but it does seem like that facility does have power. and just knowing that will probably limit any up side there are in gas prices. as you indicate, not a whole lot of increases to talk about. i don't believe we will see $5

or $6 a gallon at all. perhaps just 5 to 15 cents a gallon, if anything. it just really depends how long all this infrastructure remains offline. >> when's your best guess when we'll get gasoline back to normal plnorm normal. what's your best guess as to when you'll be able to get gas again? >> a lot of that is contingent on how many folks are out there with the power companies restoring power. i suspect we'll see some pieces of key infrastructure come back online over the weekend. you certainly aren't going to see every station reopening by next monday but we should see some of these terminals start rolling. i'm hopeful especially that the phillip's 66 terminal at its refinery will reopen very soon. we'll have to see what the damage assessment comes back. i have a feeling that's what we're waiting for is damage assessments at all these facilities to see how bad the damage is, to see if they can reopen them safely and to get products flowing but we should see some good recovery by the weekend and into monday of next week.

>> certainly not a moment too soon. patrick, thank you very much for your assessment. now if you did manage to get gas and will you to get in and out of new york city today, you're probably back to square one because traffic has really been unprecedented. scott cohn is still in lower manhattan. scott, what is different today from yesterday? >> well, one thing that's different is that there is a different sort of traffic down here. there is a lot of emergency vehicles, con ed vehicles, trucks pumping water out of buildings. they are trying to make the recovery here. it's been interesting how it is sort of the tale of two cities. there has been the epic traffic bob pisani was talking about, the two-hour commute mostly into the northern part of manhattan. down here with no power, there's been a lot less. of course before sunrise it was a surreal sort of situation down here because buildings are

closed and so on. so it's changing. they are trying to get things back up and running, but there's still a lot of water in some of these buildings. the water when the storm hit was chest deep. really bad. >> absolutely. as bob pisani was saying a moment ago, everyone is very anxious to get back up and running with the businesses opening their doors again. thank you, scott cohn. where do we even begin to rebuild after a disaster like sandy? we'll find out from a builder who's on the ground rebuilding post-katrina. later on, we're going to be speaking with pimco's bill gross. we'll of course get his reaction to the devastation and why he's taking sharp aim at the fed. ♪ [ male announcer ] this is karen and jeremiah. they don't know it yet, but they're gonna fall in love,

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the governors of new york and new jersey say that insurance companies should not charge hurricane deductibles because sandy was not a hurricane when it hit land. so, insurance companies are on the hook for more exposure. hurricane deductibles are sandys majority will come from the new jersey shore. kayla tausche has been surveying the area. you tweeted out a picture that said it all. it was a picture of the fun town pier which you said looked like it had been crushed like a soda can. >> there were several rides

there and they literally looked like they had been crunched. they were on the boardwalk, then laying listlessly on the beach. you can only get over to there by an escort or if you are in an emergency vehicle. earlier today he took a small group of journalists to actually assess the damage. we could tell that things were on bad ground as soon as we got over the bridge. this is what we found there, guys. we're here in seaside heights, arguably the hardest hit by hurricane sandy. the wreckage now that we are up close, we knew it would be but it is absolutely devastating. you can see fun town amusement pier completely in sam shambles. all of the structures that used to be on structures on the board ward now in the ground, in the sand with the ocean closer than it's ever been. now this used to be an entire boardwalk full of shops and restaurants and bars. this clearly was a carnival. while a ferris wheel is still standing, not much else is.

it is hard to imagine a place like this coming back to life. its residents living here again and all of the former structures on this pier operating as they once did. no doubt, the police here are working hard to get the more than 100 residents that are still on the island off the island. a rescue attempt that continues as we speak. now, guys, police chief tom boyd told me they've also enlisted the aspca to help with animal retrieval. we also spoke with the landlord of the carousel arcade. it was one of those buildings that completely bottomed out on the boardwalk. it had some of the arcade games, pinball machines hanging out of the front of that. she was in tears literally on the beach when we spoke with her. she said seaside heights will rebuild and it will be better than ever but it will take some time. >> i'm sure they will. listen, i appreciate bringing the story. i used to go with with my kid. my wife's family is originally from there. what about the houses? fun town pier wiped out. they'll rebuild.

tough folks. what about the houses? what did you see coming in? >> reporter: brian, it is expected that the boardwalk served as a little bit of a shield to the houses that lay a little bit farther inland. of course we've seen a lot of the pictures in the aerial views of the water front properties. no doubt severely flooded. even a lot of the inland properties we were told had water up to six or eight feet at the height of this storm. now all that water has since receded or for the most part for the inland properties. they're still standing. that real estate is relatively intact. of course no one really at this point has opened the doors and sort of peeled back the front frt house to see what actually lay inside and how bad that damage is, but we can report that from the outside it does look relatively intact. we only made a few stops on this tour. we didn't get to go all the way out to those coastal properties, ones that were the hardest hit and arguably where a lot of that standing water still is but we can report those inland houses do look okay for now. >> kayla, thank you very much. you stay safe. all right? well, more an more people are asking how new york city can

hold the marathon this sunday when so many residents and businesses are still without power and basic necessities. is this a situation the race's sponsor still wants to be associated with? we'll map out both sides of the controversy -- you know what? guess what? actually, good news. we got the shaw group's ceo on the fun. turns out he's ready to go. jim burnhart, one of the biggest builders in the company. helped rebuild new orleans. jim, appreciate you getting on the phone for us here. where does one even look to begin to rebuild in the northeast with this? >> well, you know, let me offer my sincere condolences going through katrina for the men and women and children who lost their lives. sometimes we flip ahead too quickly on that and have a moment of silence for them. it's going to take time. it's not going to be done

quickly. you'll see progress every day. number one is to have proper assessments, get the electricity back, and get a good lessons learned what we were successful on and the odds that we need improvement on. >> indeed, i believe you do pretty much everything, jim. you restore water, you bring emergency supplies. you rebuild roofs, shelters, you even rebuild shorelineses. what is going to be your role, if any, in helping to rebuild this situation and how much do you think it is going to cost? >> well, we were the company that bewarned the city of new orleans in 17 days. a lot of people thought that two take months. we are doing presently assessments in the area for dewatering. we're helping restore electricity. we have over 500 people currently deployed in an assessment row of things that's got to be accomplished on that. it is going to take years, not months.

but things will be better every day. as electricity comes back on, the gasoline will suddenly appear, traffic will begin to move, people's tempers kind of calm down a little bit when they have heat. and food at home. it will get better. that's what you can look forward to. not worse. but it is going to cost billions of dollars. not only did we do the dewatering in new orleans, we built the surge barrier, largest project ever done by the corp of engineers by a private company. i'm sure new york city and jersey will be looking at efforts to do that in the future as well. >> absolutely. look at prevention for the next natural disaster and its damage. thank you for joining us today, jim bernhard. the new york city mayor auth th -- marathon is still on. opponents say the resources we've got to use are much better served somewhere else.

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here's a non-shocker. new jersey based power company

pse&g say losses of the storm will be material at the peak. 77% of its customers, nearly 2 million folks were without power. ceo does say about 1 million have been restored. outrage that resources are better used elsewhere. the new york city marathon will still go on this weekend. people are really torn over this. just watch the reaction on twitter for example. it seems to be a very, very emotional issue. >> absolutely. as you said, the race is still on but many are still asking is that risk-reward worth it at this point. look at some of these numbers we polled. according to the "new york times" last year, the race had 47,000 runners, 8,000 volunteers and 1,000 staffers. also 2 million spectators. in total, generating $340 million in economic activity in the city. keep in mind though, about 20,000 of the 47,000 runners are from other countries. that's a little bit less than half of the race. you have to assume that travel

disruptions are going to keep some of those people out of the city. another smaller survey that we looked at of marathon participants from past years shows that runners from overseas, they spent about $2,647 per person. they stay in the city for an average of 5.7 days. they also bring an average of 3.6 guests with them. so take that away and of course that $340 million economic activity number is going to be substantially less. "the new york times" says in 2010 the road runners paid $150,000 to city agencies, including $107,000 to the police. we phoned mayor bloomberg's office to find out what resources the city contributes and how those total resources are calculated. we're still waiting for response. i have to assume because they are out doing more important things with this post-sandy recovery. >> absolutely. >> so the idea being maybe the road runners do cover a lot of their own costs.

people were complaining, put the resources where we need them. >> it seems like a portion of it. even still, if they're paying the money for that police, there are still police forces that are doing that. police can't necessarily be patrolling other areas. >> what if they're off duty and working on the side -- i don't know how it works. >> again, if the mayor's office had called back hopefully we'd have gotten into some of those issues. that's what's worrying people. >> keep us updated if they do call back, tell us what they say. thanks for the report. new york's major airports may be back online but the domino effect is still slowing air travel all around the country. we're going to find out what, if anything, can be done to better prepare our airports. we're going to be talking to pimco's bill gross and get his take on how new york and new jersey are going to pay for sandy. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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welcome back, everybody. it is "street talk" time. there are non-storm related stories out there. take a look at starbucks getting a real jolt today but not a jolt in a good way. it is a little bit of a move to the up side but nonetheless it

was downgraded at williams capital. >> it was downgraded from a buy to a hold. they cut their target price to $49 from $70. kind of odd they still see up side. either way, here's the news. earnings are out tonight. going to probably be the biggest number of the evening. capital iq estimate -- 45 cents a share. revenue about $3.39 billion. those are the numbers that you care about on starbucks tonight. >> indeed. we've also got some good news from rust stores. >> it's been a super high flyer the last few years. look at a longer term short as well. company said it had a strong october. same-store sales up 4%. problem is by one metric they were expected to go up 4.3%. a little bit of miss. ross stores raising its guidance for the third quarter though but by a penny on the possible up side. bill, this a case of high flyer,

higher valuation, good, not good enough. stock down 6%. moving right along. generators. we spoke to generac here on street signs. people are flooding to stores to buy generators to get power back in their homes. >> if people can find it, they want to buy portable generators. generac has a big opportunity according to one firm in the permanent ones. you attach a natural gas or propapr propane lines. they sit on the side of the house and don't move. target price is raised, there could be strong sales of the permanent generators. they have a 70% market share in that market. they're expensive, they're higher end. but two big storms in two years in this area. people are just tired of not having power. >> if it is quality, are you willing to pay for it. a bad day on this one.

down 17%. cutting its third quarter outlook. >> lower guidance 38, 39 cents a share, down from 42 cents. downgraded at piper jaffray. zumiez falling. this is an apple related play but that's not really doing much nor it today. >> they're one of these companies that does semi-conductors and circuits, wade deep in the guts. lot of people talk about cirrus logic ahead of the iphone 5 launch. they beat earnings estimates by 8 cents. sales rose 91% year over year, and it issued up side guidance. it was upgradeded a needham. they raised their target to 57. downgraded to hold from sell.

cirrus logic. big gross in the meantime is out with his latest investment outlook today. and in it he takes sharp aim at the fed and unfortunately, our future. bill gross, pimco founder and ceo cio. great to have you with us, as always, here on "street signs," bill. we have a lot of governments, they're broke. basically saying qualitative easing efforts of the fed have fizzled out. now suddenly we have this natural disaster in sandy causing a lot of damage. how we going to pay for this? >> we're going to pay for it, man mandy, like we always do with treasury bonds and an increasing deficit. our best estimate on the effect of sandy is that $20 billion to $30 billion economic loss which would be one-half of 1% hit to gdp in the fourth quarter. but i think also equal a .5% positive in futures going forward. is that a positive or negative for the bond and stock market?

probably neither in our view. i think the greater affect would be on the election and then the fiscal cliff which is perhaps what we're pointing towards in the near term future. >> back to something you said, bill. is it a loss or is it merely transferred to something else? is there any wealth really lost during these types of incidents? >> well, that's the broken window effect, brian. to the extent that you break your window, is that a loss if you replace it? no. the window comes stacked but it takes money that could have been spent on something else. i would say, yes, it certainly is an economic loss to the expense that other investments could have substituted for it. >> getting back to the fiscal cliff, which unfortunately is looming much to the outranl of the public and many business leaders. we're going to speak with someone with airports in a second. they say this is bad right now but it is going to get a whole lot worse if we go over the fiscal cliff because suddenly

with sequestration a lot of funding will be cut to areas like airports and other infrastructure. is this a scenario that's possible to you? >> i think that possibly -- this introduces a very delicate nature to the fiscal cliff, mandy. i would suspect that there will be a resolution and that perhaps sandy and effects from sandy will force some type of compromise that might not have been possible going forward. but to our way of thinking, the fiscal cliff is probably a 1% negative in terms of gp which means that if gdp was going to be 2 or 3, it is now going to be 1 as opposed to 2. they're probably slow-growth quarters from our standpoint. >> only economically. only economically. does it matter who wins the election? >> i don't think so. in my investment outlook, i basically said neither one, republican, democrat, democrat, republican. it is the defendant government that money can buy --

>> bill, you said a lot. you were pretty cynical. were you jaded. i thought when did bill gross get so jaded with government? >> that's not jaded. we spent $5 billion on this election for what? to prove that it is the government of the super pac by the super pac for the super pac? to prove that basically no matter who wins, that we'll be at this point four years from now in the future. so what i'm suggesting is, no, not don't go to the polls. show up and exert your responsibility. but look going forward to something different as opposed to this red and blue state theology that basically is the same. over the past four years we've had health care dominated by corporal interests, financial regulation dominated by wall street, sustained. we've had countless foreign wars, sustained. let's get something different and move in a different direction. i'm a little bit jaded, yes, from 2008 in which we were promised change and we haven't really seen it. >> talking about being jaded,

you're actually a bit pessimistic aswe well. you talk about destructive financial markets in the future. we have a lot to get to. big jobs number tomorrow, election, fiscal cliff issue. what are the markets going to do? are we going to be worse off next year? >> well, i think -- and we think at pimco -- basically we're looking at lower returns. it doesn't mean we're looking at bear market but it does mean that in terms of stocks and in terms of bonds, we're looking at perhaps 3% to 6% types of returns as opposed to double-digit returns. if we're looking at a new normal economy of slow growth with the problems that you suggest and that we agree with, then going forward basically asset markets have to reflect that growth and they have to reflect as well the 0% interest rate bound towards which the financial complex has taken us and the federal reserve as well. this is not a double-digit type of return market going forward for any investor, in our view.

>> you want to throw a number into the cnbc lunch bet jobs report number pool? we got super bowl boxes once a month for these things. >> put me down for 142,000, brian. >> okay. >> bill gross, $ 142,000. >> watch out, bill. this is a big man with a big stomach and a big appetite. bill, great to have you on our show, as always. flying anywhere in the country right now is still a challenge. >> that's putting it lightly. when airports in the northeast go down, the whole system seems to go with it. we're about to ask a former faa administrator how to change the system to keep those planes flying.

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coming up on "closing bell," we're all over in market rally and whether it could all be reversed by tomorrow's october employment report. i'll have the latest on that. blue, lou is sandy affecting the restaurant industry supply chain? we will speak exclusively to

starbucks' ceo howard schultz. they're having their issues in the northeast. you'll find out how much sandy will affect the insurance industry when we talk with aig ceo robert benmosche coming up exclusively at the top of the hour on "closing bell." see you guys then. >> thank you very much, bill. forget just new york. flight delays here are probably making your flight late wherever you are in america. so, let's bring you up to date on what's happening at the state of the airports with courtney reagan. airports one by one i know are starting to open up. is it noticeably better or do we have a long way to go? >> laguardia opened for business at 7:00 a.m. this morning. the delta flight was the first one in. but it's taken a number of hours for the flights to then actually take off again because again, the big problem has been getting the airplanes and the airport employees to the right place because they were all displaced during the storm and ahead of

the storm so that's been the big problem. us airways is actually only running one flight today and that's not coming in until tonight. jetblue is still not operating any flights in and out of laguardia. delta says it will be up to 70% of its full schedule by the end of day. american said it should be back up to almost normal but its first flight didn't take off until noon so they missed an entire morning worth of flights. there's still a lot of backlog in the system. but by and large the traffic has gotten better here. it's gotten faster. we're still seeing some cancellations because the airports and airlines are still trying to figure out exactly who needs to be where when. they're doing their best to optimize it. most of the mood and spirit here is pretty good considering what everyone's gone through. >> thanks for keeping us updated, courtney reagan. i don't mean to scare anybody, but the radar systems that we are using in american airports are largely the same ones that were used by pilots in the korean war. yeah, the technology is actually more than 60 years old. the problem is that the new

technology, which can put more planes in the sky at one time, is expensive. but, would it be money well spent? let's bring in the ceo of aerospace industries association and former faa administrator. marion, i get all fired up when i talk about this because it is a big pet peeve of mine that we don't spend the money. instead, it is better to have millions of people stuck on the ground going nowhere. would it help? >> i like you being fired up on that because i can tell you, you rex actually right, that if we could get our new system -- which is a satellite based digital system in place -- it would save tremendous amounts of time and money. it is one of those things that has a huge payoff on the investment. yet here we are, midway on this investment, trying to convert the u.s. system an we're facing sequestration. massive cuts for the faa. the inability to actually even run the system like we're used to having it run on a good day in the current arrangement.

so we really could avoid this, you're dead right to be really fired up about it. >> how do we get private investment in this area? is it difficult to get them involved? >> i think they have to be confident that in fact the faa is going to deliver on both the satellite transponders on the necessary digital investment, and then what you have is that the airlines themselves, and a number of other kinds of private investments, are likely to come in, but they do want to believe that the federal government can keep their commitments and keep this on track. that's what this whole issue of sequestration has put a big question mark in front of everyone, because no one knows what's going to happen next year an what kinds of deficits we may be running in this kind of vital investment in our infrastructure. >> it seems, marion, that people don't really understand the problem. they say, sullivan, you fool, it is a storm, no flights can take off. that's not true. planes can fly in a lot of stuff. the radar creates more problems actually than the pilots or the planes themselves, correct? >> that's exactly right.

you have to understand the limitations of radar and it is an imperfect system that we are working with. of course, the planes, therefore have to fly around sometimes convective weather as high as 60,000 feet. we forget that in the united states we have some of the connective lines in the world an we're constantly battling this in terms of keeping the system on track, keeping flight delays down. you know, there's another problem in this that i would point to in addition to the issue of the faa's concern, and that is that we are about to have a big gap in our polar satellite. this is what noaa relies on for accurate weather forecasting. and again, with sequestration, with this fiscal cliff, we are suddenly going to drive ourselves to lacking that information. >> we got to go, got breaking news in a second. marion, thank you very much. i'm sure we haven't heard the last of this issue. all right. well, we going to get the news or no? we waiting on that? all right. apparently got some big-time breaking news. so big and important that they

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all right. welcome back to -- i don't even -- 2:00 show. i want to give you some breaking news, potential m&a transaction. a $5.2 billion market value has hired blackstone to explore sale of the company. bankers tell me at least three, perhaps four of the larger private equity firms are engaged in the exploration of this to see what type of leverage could be arranged. bankers tell me the debt could be taken up to as much as

between 5.5 or 6 times. the current stock price is now up sharply. it would be one of the larger lbos if it were to be done at that premium, perhaps being more than $6 billion. we haven't seen many of that size since the financial crisis. of course, at that size, any buyer would writer a fairly large equity check, as much as $1.3 billion, which could require two private equity firms to join forces for a bid or force them to try to raise additional direct invest frmtme from a partner. the size makes the difficulty higher of any deal. as i said, it is still very early in the sale process. there is no guarantee the current process will result in any transaction. advanced auto did report disappointing earnings on october 22nd. that was forhird quarter. sources tell me the company initiated the exploration for a

buyer after reporting that quarter. the company expects to earn between 505 and 515 a share for 2012. that gives you some sense into its multiple. the company's spokesperson has not returned calls at this point. i know we're on "street signs." i've just been down here for a long time today. back to you. >> david, do not worry about it. when you bring news like that, the stock is soaring. you may not be able to see it. stock's up about $7. it's now halted. you can call us anything you want. it's great breaking news. david, thank you so much. advanced auto, by the way, halted. up about $7 before that on david's report. an exclusive to david and cnbc. i'm sure much more on that when he has it. speaking of cars and parts, you know what you don't do when you clean frup from a hurricane? you don't buy a car. so what's the real story? phil labeouf is here. quickly, any comment on david's

exclusive there on advanced auto parts? >> no, just that the private equity firms, there's going to be some definite interest. what we're talking about today are october auto sales. these numbers are decent but not spectacular. take a look at these. a couple of stand outs here. toyota well below expectations. expected gain was 24%. a lot of the discussion today revolved around sandy and the devastation in the new york area. auto makers estimate that monthly sales rates, the impact on the rate down 300,000 due to sandy. 60% of the auto dealerships in greater new york are not operationoperat operational. group one which has a number of dealerships in that area, says it's going to be suffering a $2 million loss in its inventory. the question now becomes, you have these long gas lines, people with a lot of other things on their mind. how quickly do sales snap back? actually, the automakers say, listen, it will take a couple

months, but they believe sales will snap back. helping that will be the fact that gm and nissan are out with special incentives. expect other automakers to duplicate those and come up with their own offers. quickly look at shares of the automakers and what they have done over the last three months. guys, the bottom line is this. you have a lot of people there who have damaged vehicles. they eventually will rebuy. the question is when. it's probably not going to happen in the next or so. when that inventory gets in there and they can get around to it, they will buy a new car. >> let's pose some questions to mark shineberg. great to have you on the phone, mark. you represent about 400 new car dealers. tell us about the impact they've seen and what they will be able to get back the lost inventory. of course, they lost inventory in the storm. >> yeah, the damage to the new car industry in the new york area has been quite severe. phil's number, 60% of the

dealers are shut down, is exactly the kind of numbers that we're coming up. our field people are out there. we're calling our dealers, ask them how they're doing, what kind of assistance they need. we're finding that about 60% are still closed down. no power, no electric, no phone. we're seeing more and more vehicle damage. not as much on the facilities, but some facility damage, especially on the coastal areas of staten island and brooklyn where we've heard a total devastation to some of the dealerships that are there. but tens of thousands of vehicles have been flooded and damaged due to the storm, which is going to be devastating financially to the retail part of it and also as phil had mentioned the retail sales are going to be impacted for quite some time. >> absolutely. mark, thank you very much. well, the boss is taking care of his own, and he's not alone. all the details on a big benefit

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oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. all right. before we go, check out these unbelievable before and after shots that really capture the nature of the disaster along the jersey shore. all right down in a row. beautiful peninsula area. we have the bay on one side. you